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I remember when Daniel's name was being floated for President about a year ago, some freepers had a real revulsion to the thought of him as the nominee. I never quite learned why. I was kind of neutral on him.

If he really wowed people with his CPAC speech and his State of the State address was excellent, I'll have to look into him further to see if this is the horse to back. I've heard some really good things about him. But I also have to see what kind of baggage this guy has that makes so many freepers dislike him. I'm not excited about any of the likely GOP candidates yet.

Daniels wanting to push social issues to the side is disappointing, but as someone who is passionate about social issues, there's two schools of conservative thought that diverge from my own, basically they are:

1) "I'm pro-life, but and I'll pass the pro-life stuff IF it comes before me, but this issue is not a big concern of mine and I'd rather avoid it and focus on other things" (the Fred Thompson/Mitch Daniels mindset)

2) "I'm pro-life, and I'm absolutely horrified about abortion and want it ended -- but gosh darn, as a federal official I can't do ANYTHING about it! The only solution is to completely wash our hands of it and SEND IT BACK TO THE STATES to deal with! Then we'll all pray that Massachuttes is somehow going to ban abortion on their own" (the mindset of many "states rights" Ron Paulittes, though at least Ron himself has voted more like position #1 listed above)

As for me, I'd rather go with a candidate who's esposing the first belief than a "strongly pro-life" candidate eposing the second belief and claiming he has no authority to enforce his beliefs.